Month: January 2017

Palgrave Forest
We enjoyed a nice walk in Palgrave yesterday. The park was pretty empty as the trails were quite icy. But our crampons kicked ass and made the walk easy. We did a 7km loop. We have heard a story of a dog walking getting surrounded by coyotes in Bolton last week, so we were on alert for most of the walk after bdot heard something. We toyed with the idea of going to IKEA but instead did a monstrous amount of cooking making two soups (Lasagne and Beef Barley) and a main (Beef Stroganoff). I’m thinking of getting a Mellby Chair in (Dansboro Gray) for my office, bdot is also looking for a few things for her office too. Maybe next weekend.This was before we even went hiking… *eyeroll*
I guess I may become a bit redundant complaining about Tr*mp all the time (and it has been only a few weeks!)… but wow…things he does are both incomprehensible, infuriating and hurtful. His has hammer drop was banning all Muslims from select middle eastern nations. Really… this chart says it all.

It is worth noting that protests continue across the U.S. and even Senators, other presidents and the U.N. have decried some of Tr*mp’s *executive orders”. Grahhhh!

The news continues to be troubling here in Canada too. I was shocked and saddened to read of the terror attack in Quebec City. Gunmen stormed into a Mosque and opened fire, killing Canadians during prayer. Shameful, disgusting and cowardly. Murdering people you don’t know due to some irrational religious (or racist) fear is one of the worst aspects of humanity. Hopefully, they will be punished to fullest extent of the law. *smh*A moment of silence for CanadaSome profound words a friend posted on Facebook

We started watching the movie The Queen last night. Pretty interesting, I didn’t know there was such a rift between Diana and the Queen.

Yes. This really happened.
Yes this really happened. I guess some small part of me hoped that it really was just a twilight zone episode but it isn’t. We better get used to seeing the comb over king as President. It is remarkable. All Tr*mp did was bluster. Anti-this, hate that… he has zero political experience, zero foreign affair experience and has declared bankruptcy SIX times. He has made derogatory remarks about religion, women, minorities, the handicapped, various foreign nations, the media, the last President and the current state the U.S. of A. Phew! But of course, he promised to make ‘Merica great again.
I can’t f*cking wait! Sigh. The Woman’s March on Washington was incredible. There were marches in most major cities throughout the US, but as interesting, there were also marches in nations all over the world. Regret is a terrible thing. This sums it up quite nicely:

Last week was my BiL’s birthday. My Mom drove up to Bolton then we ventured up to Barrie to join my sister and BiL for dinner at Flying Monkeys Pub. The pub is really interesting inside. The ceiling is covered with Rock album covers (including a few of my favourites!) The town of Barrie was hosting an event called Barrielicious to attract people into restaurants around town. It seemed to be working as it was busy while we were there. One thing I enjoy is trying new beers. And since Flying Monkeys is also a brewery – there was the option to sample with flights of beer! Glorious! A few that I recall that I tried: Netherworld Cascadian Dark Ale (solid, as advertised), Flying Monkeys Amber (delicious), Juicy Ass (okay)… a few I can’t recall the names, one had some odd root in it – it was pretty strange. It seems a lot of the available beers were limited run beers as they are not on their website as standard beers. Dinner was pub food. It was well done. I highly recommend the pretzel as a starter. Mmm. It was a fun night!Monkeying around

The fog was pretty nuts on the 400 driving home that night. Took a shot of Barrie as we were leaving.Over-saturated shot of Barrie in the fog

Roguetastic.
We’ve been trying to get to Star Wars: Rogue One for awhile now. Yesterday we finally went! I like that the Star Wars franchise is filling in some of the background with these ‘side stories’. For non-Star Wars fans they can be enjoyed as a one off action film, fans will of course find more meaning. I enjoyed Rogue One. It was full of action and interesting characters. The characters didn’t grab as well as characters “from the real movies” but they were still engaging. The action sequences were excellent. There were brief scenes with some major characters as well like Darth Vader and Princess Leia. I’d certainly watch the other Star Wars’ stories.

Saturday was busy. I entertained the idea of visiting my Mother but ran out of time. I was down in Niagara for a Celebration of Life for Captain’s Father in Law who passed suddenly. The hall was packed and unfortunately I couldn’t stay in the area as it was also Bdot’s Christmas event that evening. It is always a sad event to attend but it does feel good to offer some comfort to friends that are grieving. I can certainly appreciate the pain from losing a Father. It was also great to have a little visit with MikeMike and see Pat’s parents. It really was unfortunate I had to rush down and rush back to the GTA. That said the work Christmas party was a good event. It was held at Cirillo’s in Etobicoke. It is a unique evening where you actively participate in making dinner. I got stuck with peeling potatoes. Yawn. The meal was however, excellent. Dinner was bacon wrapped Beef Tenderloin which was one of the nicest cuts of meat I think I’ve ever had. It was a noticeably smaller group for the party than I recall in the past. Still those in attendance seemed to make the best of it. We drove one of Barb’s contractors Jens to the party. An interesting, curious fellow. On the drive home he said he was not feeling well so we had to stop twice for him to get some air. He ended being okay fortunately. A fun night.

Bdot and I busted thought the strange Netflix series OA. It took a few episodes to get going but once the story was established it was pretty engaging. The season ended with a major cliffhanger. I don’t know if there will be another season or not.

Well the US v. Russia game couldn’t have been closer. It was tied 3-3 and tied after OT… it took 7 rounds of shooters for US to win. Incredible game.

The late game was Canada v. Sweden . Canada was actually the underdog against the powerful, undefeated Sweds. Canada started slow and let in some soft goals. Hart took over in net and Canada responded. The boys poured it on with consistent skating and attack. Even when up by two goals. (Did you watch Bylsma?) With an empty netter, Canada won 5-2. It creates a US v. Canada final tomorrow night! US won the first meeting. Go Canada!!

My S4 has been my incredible phone for many years… it still works pretty well but it is starting to show its age. Bdot eventually spoke to someone helpful at Rogers and was able to arrange for a update to a Samsung Galaxy S7. My first pick by a hair was the Google Pixel but since it is a so-called Premium phone it was an $200 but some ridiculous monthly fee. So forget about it. I’m excited to get the S7. I’ve already ordered my Otterbox for it. I can unequivocally say that the Ottobox case saved my S4 many, MANY times… it was an automatic add-on for my new phone.

I’ll update once I get the phone.

Update!

Samsung S7 beside S4

I got my S4 in December of 2013. So it worked well for about 3 years. (..and it still works… and I’m replacing the battery which – I assume – will fix the random, power related, spontaneous reboots… but we’ll see. I will still use it for notifications/clock/weather/info on my desk.) Still there were odd system issues with apps randomly closing. Frankly it is just interesting to upgrade. I found out the S7 will be getting the newest Android 7 too as well. So that is awesome. Comparing the two phones the first big change is the screen. Moving from the S4’s 1080 x 1920 441 ppi to the S7’s 1440 x 2560 pixels 576 ppi is pretty dramatic. Of course it also seems snappier with twice the RAM and a Octa-core, 2300 MHz, Exynos M1 and ARM Cortex-A53 , 64-bit chip for the S7 vs. the Quad-core, 1900 MHz, Krait 300. I’ll have to use it for a while before I can really gauge any performance. I’ve read about how great the camera is, we’ll see. I do like the double home tap to access the camera quickly and the auto focus is lightning fast. It really seems like a logical hardware progression. More, faster, better. I’ll report back after I play with it.

Bah. After an incredible tied game goes to OT… US scores one goal in the shootout to win the World Juniors. Canada had an OT PP and plenty of chances and didn’t capitalize. How disappointing. Shootouts suck. Still silver is better than 6th last year.

Happy new year! Our original plan was to join our cottage friends in Perth for New Year’s Eve… but there was the flu going around so we stayed home. For the first time I can remember I enjoyed a quiet NYE at home. The wife and I watched Force Awakens and Jason Bourne. So an action packed movie night. Saturday we ventured up to Orangeville to go skiing at the Mono Nordic Ski club. It was an incredible day for skiing. It was awesome! We keep contemplating moving to Orangeville, and the outdoor resources are certainly another reason why. It snowed the night before – so it was pristine and beautiful along the ski trails.One more lap?
After skiing we stopped in at Homesense and found a killer deal on a chair for the Mancave. I like it and it was an incredible deal but I’m still evaluating if it is the one. We also made a visit to Aurora to visit Bdot’s sister since it was her birthday and was stuck at home with The Boys.

We’ve been outdoors all weekend. Yesterday we did a big chunk of Palgrave forest. I think it was around 9km. A great day for a walk. We saw tons of people on the trail (which is a rarity).Palgrave Loop
We found this chap during the hike.Hey there!
Here is the Palgrave Forest Hiking Map. Maybe you can figure out the route we took.Palgrave Forest Hiking Map

Today we thought we’d stick around home for our walk. Wow…! There is some amazing conversation land tucked behind a lot of the subdivisions in Bolton. We walked close to 10km today and were in greenspace 90% of the time! This was today’s monstrous walk.Bolton Walk
The key is walking up the hill near the Bolton sign. It leads up to some trails that follow to the left. We’ll certainly do this remarkable loop again. It was a long walk. Picked up the mail at the end.

Sabres continue to suck. I wonder if Bylsma’s days are numbered. Canada is into the quarter finals. I’m not sure if they’ll get past Sweden….